70 BIRDS BROWN ABOVE AND WHITE BELOW. 



TREE-SPARROW.— Form, like the House-Sparrow. 

 Length, 5^ inches. Head chestnut ; upper parts 

 brown streaked with black ; wings and tail brown, 

 the former with white double wing -bar; throat 

 black ; sides of neck whitish, with detached tri- 

 angular black patch ; under parts grayish-white ; bill 

 conical. Resident. 



Eg"gS. — 4-6, grajnsh- white, but almost entirely 

 hidden by fine mottling of various shades of brown ; 

 •75X-54 inch (plate 124). 



Nest. — Of hay lined with feathers, and placed in 

 holes in pollard -trees, in the outside of thatched 

 roofs, in openings in tiles, and in holes in cliffs. 



The Tree-Sparrow is far rarer than the House- 

 Sparrow, occurring prettj'' generally in the eastern 

 parts of England and Scotland, locally elsewhere 

 in these countries, and rarely in Wales and Ireland. 

 It is for the most part a bird of the open country'-, 

 nesting in trees — often pollard ones — in some suit- 

 able cavit}'' or on the branches, although it is suf- 

 ficiently familiar at times to make use of barns 

 and outhouses for nesting purposes. Bj'- its brisk 

 chirpings, its quarrelsome character, its habit of 

 catching flies on the wing in the summer months 

 and banding together in autumn in the stand- 

 ing grain and stubble, it resembles the House- 

 Sparrow. From the latter, liowever, it may at 

 once be distinguished by the chestnut colour of 

 the head, there being in the Tree -Sparrow no 

 suggestion of the ashy crown and nape of the 

 House- Sparrow. 



